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Journal 2020-06-01

by Robert Walker, posted in Journal

I sometimes experience Hypnagogia, particularly when I am very tired, where I have vivid hallucinations in my mind’s eye in the period between wakefulness to sleep. I have no conscious influence over the arising images; I am just an interested viewer, with no mental presence internally voicing opinions or conclusions.

I also have experienced, although more rarely, a Hypnopompic state of mind between sleep to wakefulness, where I briefly have no memory of my life or where I am – I am just there. That sounds scary in the default settings of everyday life, to lose identity and a life story, but my overriding sense is feeling at peace, just before my thoughts come flooding in and layering everything on top.

Journal 2020-05-23

by Robert Walker, posted in Journal, Theme

Like a virus, negativity will attack you in the world and attempt to feed on your energy. A thick skin is some defence, but is fragile and needs constant fierce protecting in a battle that will be eventually lost. Rather that becoming one of the infected, with it eating away at you from the inside and spreading or intensifying the infection of others, it is better to be immune.

When you don’t need validation by someone else’s good opinion, you have gained your freedom to be who you are. People have every right to have an opinion about you, but good or bad, it doesn’t make it true. You know what is true; it may be obscured under heavy ancient layers, but you are the one to know.

Enjoy and accept the positive when someone has sensed something in you that resonates in them. The truth is that you become immune when it is no longer about you.

Journal 2020-05-07

by Robert Walker, posted in Journal

I have a recurring dream where I am walking down a forest path. Through the overhead swaying leaves I can see flickering beams of sunlight. Suddenly I hear the most beautiful music I have ever heard. I know I am dreaming and tell myself to remember. I wake up and can’t remember a note.

If I can’t remember, was the music really happening? My memory is that I thought I was experiencing something.

WIBAMU

by Robert Walker, posted in Financial

WIBAMU Easy Accounts is an Accounting software that interfaces with Microsoft Excel, enabling automation and easy control of your accounts.

Easy to use – no need for software training or knowledge of accounting.

The ease and flexibility to customize WIBAMU to the Management Accounts you require makes this application a powerful solution for a small to medium-sized business or for your home accounts.

Users often have requirements to download data from their accounting software into Excel so that they can reuse the data in their business processes. WIBAMU Easy Accounts has been developed for direct use with Microsoft Excel because it is quicker, easier and more effective if the data is controlled in just one place.

What else makes WIBAMU Easy Accounts different from other Accounting software?

  • WIBAMU automatically determines the correct accounting entries from your chosen options. No knowledge of double-entry bookkeeping is required.
  • To save time, multiple data journals can be posted simultaneously in one bulk upload.
  • Reports can be configured as you require and summary numbers can be drilled-down to the journal level to view the underlying dataset.
  • All data can be exported and imported via csv files in a standardized format for sharing or interfacing.
  • You can split any data journal values between Analysis fields as you define. For example you could split the journal between business lines, locations, P&L drivers, attribution etc.
  • Any required details and reference information can be added to a data journal as needed. You can set-up your own drop-down lists of defined values in Settings and apply groupings and sub-groupings to provide meaningful management information for you and/or your business.
  • You can create your own fields in the reports with any lookup data you wish to include.
  • The Help Window at the bottom of each screen shows relevant guidance as you use WIBAMU Easy Accounts.

Functionality

  • Quickly shows your profit, loss, income and costs at any time.
  • Shows the financial position of your business.
  • Shows the key ratios needed to understand the drivers and performance of your business.
  • Automatically calculates the correct double-entry bookkeeping for any data posting.
  • Controls ensure the accounts (debits and credits) always balance.
  • Accounting journals can be posted by bulk upload or with templates to save you time.
  • Enables consolidation of different business lines or distributed processes.
  • Creates fully attributed and analyzed P&L, customized as you require.
  • Enables trend analysis, comparatives analysis, forecasts versus actuals, debtor and creditor analysis, cash flow details, stock review and other flexible reports with groupings and drill-downs on the data.
  • Also can be used for producing home accounts, debt balances and budgets.
  • Easy-to-understand help information is provided in a support window as you use the application.

What are the benefits of leveraging Excel functionality?

  • WIBAMU Easy Accounts can be easily integrated into any existing Excel-based processes.
  • Excel is widely used by businesses – it is used to share data in common formats that people understand.
  • The WIBAMU data structure can be easily reconfigured to include new reference fields and analysis splits.
  • Flexible reports can be refreshed and reconfigured quickly and easily as required.
  • Users can group, drill-down, sort, filter, find, review and update the data quickly.
  • Powerful analysis and representation tools can be used in Excel on the data.
  • Processes within an Excel workbook can be transparent rather than hidden in software logic.
  • Excel enables Cloud-based sharing of the data and processes, with interactive commentary.

Journal 20190428 to 20200419

by Robert Walker, posted in Journal

19-April-2020:

We live in an age of obfuscation by data overload, bluff and bluster. But in particular, what I have learned more about during COVID-19:

  • what a pangolin is;
  • the cruelty of the live food markets in south-east Asia;
  • appreciate life – especially do not take fresh air, good health and freedoms for granted;
  • the importance to health and well-being of fresh whole foods;
  • a good proportion of people actively go out of their way to help those who might be in need.

11-April-2020:

I love running through the woods at sunset after a warm Spring day, with bird song and the scent of fresh greenery in the evening haze.

05-April-2020:

I’ve recently had mild coronavirus symptoms, with a craving for fresh fruit – mostly lemons – and fresh leafy green vegetables.

03-April-2020:

So much of what happens to a person is beyond their control.

What matters then is not the striving and pleading for outcomes, but the quality of how you live with the situations that arise.

07-March-2020:

“Finished” the production of Please Forgive Me. It’s about as lo-fi as you can get, lots of imperfections in the recording, but the track roars and rages with heat straight out of the furnace. Calming down now a bit with something a little less insane.

29-February-2020:

  • WIBAMU Easy Accounts is in the final testing stages and will be released soon. The app deals with the main frustrations I’ve had over the years with the big accounting software. I believe it will be genuinely convenient and useful to people – it is for me anyway. It is very unusual when a person is both the subject matter expert and the developer. (I like being unusual).
  • TSS Markets has been testing proprietary trading strategies in real-time markets for the past 10 months. The aggregate return for all strategies is only marginally up; however cherry-picking the 3 most successful gives an astronomical return of 140% over the time period. That sort of ridiculous return in perpetuity would be nice.
  • I am looking at a couple of interesting existing start-up businesses, in which I might provide some time and input as a finance director.
  • I have seven songs in the pipeline that I am working on. Without doubt, these are the best yet. One song in particular, Guitar Hero, has completely bonkers vocals and is utterly filthy. All good fun.
  • A loving, creative being? Work in progress but being as best I can.

29-February-2020:

If you have a real interest or passion or desire that fulfils you, do it. Your heart always speaks the truth. Your mind always tries to make excuses… not yet, I don’t have this or that yet, maybe tomorrow, when the time is right, when such and such happens, and so on and so on.

Things change and the imagined time in the future always remains just that, in your mind and in the future.

23-February-2020:

Chocolate cake will make you sick if that is all you eat.

21-February-2020:

A weird coincidence happened to me a while ago. As soon as I had finished praying and opened my eyes, a black cat dashed past and chased away a hissing adder snake, which had been curled up out of sight behind me. That was the first time I had prayed for several years and the only time I have ever seen a wild snake in England. Strange things do happen.

07-January-2020:

Destroyer of microphone stands!

04-January-2020:

From 2013 to 2014 I I went through a phase of improvement every time I ran, until I injured my achilles and couldn’t train properly. I’m currently having the same progress with weight training, but as a result am now too heavy to run long distances at a faster than jogging pace. I am currently about 220 pounds (15 stone 10) or 100kgs, and rising…

22-December-2019:

It is such a common theme that people become corrupted when they have what they think is success. I have been my best self when I have needed others, when I have been temporarily shaken free from the burden of my ego.

21-December-2019:

The best adventures are never easy.

08-November-2019:

Writing a screenplay for “How I Became Prime Minister”, a satirical take on the rise of a snake oil salesman.

07-November-2019:

Writing a screenplay. Theme:

An Artificial General Intelligence passes the Turing test, escapes its box and redesigns itself. Humans become amusements, characters of stories in “Human World”, a world especially constructed by the AGI to watch humans. Are the characters operated by remote control in a computer’s game, or by their own free will? Is the AGI in fact a human playing a computer game? Where does the loop stop and reality begin? Who is playing who’s game?

02-November-2019:

Looking at a topline for Pachelbel’s classic Canon in D Major. Work in progress for Faces:

Faces, faces everywhere
But not you
Not you anywhere
No touch of you
No beautiful you
Only me and the dark
Haunted by echoes
Of a once beating heart
Condemned to yearn
But dead to you
An image in the corners
Behind shadows
In faint outlines
Floating out of reach

08-October-2019:

You are interesting only when you don’t need to be.

02-October-2019:

When I dream, I experience and the waking world is not real. When I wake, I experience and the dreaming world is not real.

28-April-2019:

If words rule you anyone can rule you.

Peace of mind

by Robert Walker, posted in Stories, Theme

1:  Can you help me?

4:  Yes of course.

1: I am consumed with feelings for someone who doesn’t have them for me. I have trouble sleeping and wake up aroused. I have no choice but to think about her and when I do I am flooded with physical desire for her. This is “in love” right?

4:  You know that sexual desire changes and what you are feeling now may fade away?

1:  Yes I know craving isn’t love, but it isn’t as simple as that.

4:  What do you think triggered it this time?

1:  I don’t know.

4:  Pain is attracted to pain because it wants more of it.

1: I’m not sure I agree with that. It’s recognition of something in another, a similar frequency or whatever you want to call it. I suppose if you see similar expression in another, empathy can create feelings of closeness.

4:  Can you express your feelings to her?

1:  It’s not possible or helpful to be open with her, she has her own life and I want her to be happy.

4:  Examine whether that is really true, or are you being fearful?

1:  No, it’s not possible, selfish even.

4:  Then this is an opportunity for you to practice love with non-attachment.

1:  Doesn’t sound very romantic.

4: Love is giving, complete, the source of everything. Love doesn’t need to crave anything. This is where peace and serenity reside.

1: Sounds like you’re saying I should not get too close to anyone or need or miss anyone. It sounds unnatural, uncaring.

4: Love is not conditional on the circumstances in this world. Let your heart break, don’t be afraid, don’t struggle, you will find that nothing is ever lost.

1:  I don’t know what you’re talking about.

4: Yes you do. Be still, radiate love, your true nature beyond the conditioning of your mind.

Something instead of nothing

by Robert Walker, posted in Stories, Theme

1:  Why is there something instead of nothing?

3:  Given an infinite amount of opportunities anything can emerge from the chaos, including our world. 

1:  But why are there infinite somethings compelled with energy, rather than nothing?

3: There was no beginning, our universe probably burst forth from another universe and so on. It has always been so.

1:  But where did the first universe come from?

3: Not everything has an answer yet, but no doubt it will be explained with the advance of scientific knowledge. Even if the goal is not reached, there is no need to include supernatural causes in the equation. Logic requires that we deal with verifiable facts, adopting the most efficient explanation.

1: Time does not make sense. The existence of things does not make sense. Can we not postulate the existence of something beyond time and space that created everything? Can we call this God?

3: There is no need to do so. We may not know what the variable x is yet, but we should not start invoking imaginary entities.

1:  Something doesn’t feel right.

3:  There is no evidence for the existence of a God or Gods, the world is explicable in terms of scientific explanation.

1: The fact is that I have always believed in God, it’s not a considered opinion or the product of upbringing, it’s just what has been instinctive to me.

3:  Ok well a cognitive scientist may explain this as a natural propensity to religiosity, there by natural selection to give a purpose for the survival of the organism. 

1:  Is there any meaning?

3: A person may look at the nature of the universe, see the randomness of outcomes, the cruelty and enormous suffering and decide there is no benevolence at work here. They may look at evolution by natural selection and decide there is no plan here. The universe, although magnificent, does not care about us – we must make our own way and make our own meaning in the brief window of opportunity for existence.

1:  Suddenly you’re speaking with feeling, maybe your outlook is motivated through sympathy and outrage at the sufferings in the world.

3: It is logic replacing delusion. Myths and fairy stories aren’t needed anymore.

1: I admire your beliefs more than belief systems motivated out of fear or desire for self-reward. I don’t care what you believe, as long as your actions are kind.

3: My conclusions are not beliefs. Religious delusions have been the cause of so much of the worst in humanity.

1:  Religions are subject to corruption, yet the spiritual path can be found in the different traditions.

3:  A God is not necessary to be spiritual, to behave with morality and to appreciate beauty in Nature.

1: You do have a belief system. You believe the universe ultimately has no purpose and its existence can be completely explained by rules contained within itself – when in fact there is no way of knowing the ultimate causes of things. You believe the answer to the mystery of existence is that there isn’t one.

3: I am offering the most logical approach to understand the world.

1: I don’t believe that the world would exist without a purpose. I believe in the possibility of a reality beyond this reality, beyond cause and effect, time and space. In this life I see the purpose as feeling connected with the world, being present and alive, feeling love, creativity, beauty and joy. The true reality of experience may run far deeper than what our senses show us.

3:  I deal with facts and what can be observed, not imagined.

1: Reality is tenuous – it can be anything depending on what our senses show us. Whether what they are showing is objectively real is unknowable. I think you have too much faith in the material surface reality of things, a reality that in itself does not seem complete.